Youth-Led but Not Youth-Run: A Fair and Meaningful Distinction?

• In Event: 60.083 - Roundtable Session 19
  In Roundtable Session: 60.083-8 - Youth-Led Efforts for Educational Equity

Abstract

Youth organizing groups have long used the term “youth-led” to describe a range of practices and organizational configurations. Policy makers and civic leaders who are targets of their organizing campaigns have raised questions about what the term signifies, often with the intention of discrediting these groups. This paper seeks to define and clarify the term “youth-led,” drawing on literature about organizational theory, student agency, and youth leadership and data from several qualitative studies of one such group to examine how youth leadership manifests in negotiations around organizational management, organizing work, and a group’s long-term vision and culture. We question whether or not it is useful to draw a distinction between youth-led and youth-run what such a distinction accomplishes.

Authors

• Sonia M Rosen, Arcadia University

• Jerusha Osberg Conner, Villanova University